1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a Personal Computer (PC) Client based, directly connected network with PC Clients containing various soft yet unique contents and with PC Clients containing soft contents common to the other PC Clients, providing automatic content management for the purpose of efficient, transparent distribution and sharing, which reduces time consuming and costly labor to effect, disseminate, and manage over an entire network without loss and with the efficient replication of said content at a central site (PC Client or Server) without involving the typical server 10 process, using direct data transfers among the PC Clients and a Management Program that resides on a computer in the accessible network.
2. Historic Perspective of Invention
With the proliferation of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) based networks in the 1990s, many local area networks were configured from the server and required Information Technology (IT) manpower to visit a PC Client (referred to herein simply as a PC Client) to initialize and identify the PC Client for network operations. Typical initialization routines involve inserting into the PC Client a floppy diskette media with appropriate network drivers and network operating system parameters. After the initialization from the floppy based media and resulting identification from server, the PC Client would be able to communicate to the network server and also be capable of communications with other network resources, given the appropriate access rights. This process is manual in that a network savvy IT person must perform the operation thus ensuring the PC Client can be identified by the server with an unique IP address. For each PC Client, network server resources are identified and assigned either by explicit enunciation of server resources and shares or by implicit membership of that PC Client in a group definition, as defined by the Network operating system of the network server, which group definition contains resource and share access permissions.
An IP address, that which uniquely identifies each PC Client on the network, is assigned either at the network server or at the PC Client. This process must be performed for each network server that offers resources to the PC Client.
Each individual PC Client is manually initialized and assigned an IP address, thus enabling it to use a server and the server""s resources, using a floppy disk that is inserted into the PC Client. The floppy disk normally contains the appropriate drivers, configuration information from the Network Operating System, and miscellaneous files that assist in the final preparation that enables the utilization of the server and it""s resources. The server acknowledges the IP address that each PC Client is using. Consequently, the PC Client can access server resources and shares.
Multiple PC Clients are initialized and prepared for server use, with each PC Client requiring the equivalent manual effort. In some cases, an agent may be installed onto each PC Client. The agent performs a limited inventory of installed known applications, which at this process stage are generally the basic applications that are necessary to operate the PC Client. Further manual effort may be required to install other applications from server shares, as is customary in today""s Local Area Network (LAN) environment.
The IP address, a 32 bit binary number, is comprised of four (4) segments or classes, with each class having a value that ranges from zero to 255 decimal (zero is significant). TCP/IP. The total number of unique addresses on a local area network is 4,294,967,296 (256xc3x97256xc3x97256xc3x97256). For Local Area Networks (LANs), the total available number of IP addresses is not significant. As a side note when referencing the Internet, the limited 32 bit address is quickly becoming a problem as more and more computers become connected to the Internet via Wide Area Networks (WANs).
There are two methods of assigning an IP address to a PC Client. In one method, a server dynamically assigns the IP address to the PC Client as needed. Typically, the server would use software that functions as a Dynamic Name Server. In the other method, static addresses are assigned manually to each PC Client.
Once an IP address is assigned to a PC Client, typically the network server will associate a machine name to that the IP address. The machine name is normally unique to the PC Client computer. The machine name is effectively an abstraction, reference to the PC Client that is utilized by network operating systems and protocols.
In addition to the manual process of connecting the PC Client to each network server, the entire-focus of the identification process was to make available network services and resources to the PC Client. The collection and management of content on the PC Client is virtually ignored, even in today""s advanced server operating systems for PC Clients. In other words, the process portends a one-way relationship with the network server and the PC Client, where the emphasis rests on the resources (including content) offered by the network server and not by the PC Client.
More importantly, content that is contained on the PC Client goes unnoticed, for the most part, by the network server. This is partly due to the nature of the network server as it executes it primary function: serve it""s resources outward to PC Clients. Adding to the already complex nature of the network server is the current trend to add network servers to perform specific application function, thus making assignment of content management on the PC Client less applicable to any one specific network server. As it has been in the past, only those PC Clients with a need to access the server are given the access rights to the server. Consequently, a particular network server may not have any access rights to a given PC Client, given its primary function to serve an application specific task outward to a PC Client.
While various PC Client management software exist today, no known software packages exist that automatically manage the full content on the PC Client in a network as a collected and shared resource. IT organizations have little time to discover and learn about the content and its use on each PC Client, with the possible exception of the contents that were installed by their organization or came pre-installed by the PC Client manufacturer. With little or no knowledge of the content, and without a specific application or server to manage the content, PC Client content exists as long as the PC Client maintains it, thus emphasizing the placement of content management upon the user of the PC Client computer.
The Internet has increased the number and size of PC Client content by allowing each PC Client to download many different types of content, which are not visible to the network resource or to the management software that may or may not exist on any network server.
Considering that the majority of a company""s corporate information may reside on individual PC Clients that do not share or timely protect transitions to that content, a great need exists to automate PC Client full content management without burdening the server process and resources, and to automate content sharing among other PC Clients as needed.
As network computing evolves, more emphasis will be placed on the PC Client, regardless of the network server. The delivery and management of content on the PC Client will become more important as the source for content that is used by the PC Client.
A method and system for xe2x80x9cautomaticallyxe2x80x9d and without manual intervention identifying PC Clients on a network, establishing a formal method of communications between the PC Clients, installing a PC Client agent software on the PC Clients, analyzing those PC Clients for common and unique content, making a copy of and reducing and or eliminating the redundant storage of PC Client content to and on a centrally accessed computer without loss; sharing the common content among PC Clients as well as for distributing new content to select PC Clients and groups, for maintaining redundant content maps that allow common content to be extracted from multiple sources and that manage content lock down lists that prohibit the accidental or intentional deletion or modification of content, and provide multiple sourced recovery of content, from the closest repository.
In a preferred embodiment, one of the PC Clients is designated the host PC Client with access to the server and all other PC Clients in a network, e.g. a LAN. The host PC Client is initialized in any of several ways, for example, from a diskette having the required host software programs stored therein. The host PC Client searches for and identifies and logs the server and all other PC Clients on the network by address and machine name.
The host PC Client sends Agent software to each PC Client. The Agent analyzes all of the content in each respective PC Client and prepares a local map of the soft content. The Agents send the maps for each respective PC Client to the host PC Client for comparison with entries in a master map of all soft content in the network. For all local map entries not found in the master map, the host PC Client software and the Agents prepare and send the corresponding PC Client content to a master database created and managed by the host PC Client software. One copy of each content element unique to a PC Client or common to several PC Clients is maintained in the master database.
The content management software in the host PC Client maintains the database along with the corresponding master content map. Changes to the master content map are sent to each affected Agent on PC Clients.
It will be understood that the network server rather than a PC Client could be designated as host, which then provides content management and communicates to Agents on the PC Clients. Also, the content stored by the server could also be replicated to the master database of the host PC Client and managed in the same manner as the content of the PC Clients.